Page 38 of Rebel Fae
I could kiss Vaughn forever and never grow tired. He tasted sweet and salty like the best kind of fae dessert. He smelled of the forest, soap, and his own musk, which drove me crazy, and the way he used his lips and tongue, intermingling them with mine, let me know he had expertise that I wasn’t used to. I hadn’t had a lot of experiences with males in Faerie, but I knew that even if I had, there’d be no one like Vaughn.
He gripped my hips harder, his passion seeming to build. I knew where he wanted this to go, and I wanted it too, but something stopped him. He put his hands on my waist and pushed up slightly until I was sitting up again.
“Tally,” he said. “We need to cool down.”
I blinked. “Why?”
Slowly, he helped me slide off his lap and sat beside me, holding my hand. “I want this. God, I want this, but not right now. Not like this.” He glanced at the tiny room, the tinycell.
He was right, of course, but that didn’t stop the raging fire burning through me. I sat beside him, holding his hand and resisting the urge to climb on top of him again.
“What happens now?” I asked.
He sighed. “We’re scheduled to go back in an hour. The others need us. It seems they’ve opened the chest and found something inside it. They wouldn’t tell me what.”
That information piqued my interest, but that wasn’t what I was asking.
“What happens tousout there? Are we still supposed to pretend this isn’t happening?” I gestured between our two bodies.
He turned to me, running a hand down my cheek. “We can try to keep it a secret, but I don’t know, Tally. It’ll be hard to keep my hands off of you.”
“We have to get out of here,” I said, resting my face into the palm of his hand.
“Stick with me,” he said, his emerald eyes finding mine. “I can get us out. I don’t know how or when, but I’ll make it happen, Tally. I promise you that.”
Chapter Fifteen
Armed guards escortedVaughn and me back to the dome’s warehouse area. I marched next to him, feeling that my hope had been somewhat restored. Maybe it was stupid, but the fact that I didn’t feel alone anymore had made all the difference. Vaughn was with me, truly with me. And Arryn was all right.
Vaughn’s determination to get us out of here matched mine. We would figure out a way to escape.
When we got to the corner of the warehouse where we could teleport back to the other campers, I was surprised to find Adaline waiting there with Crescent and Dr. Watts. Adaline was smiling, her attention fully devoted to me. It made me feel self-conscious. I shifted from foot to foot. Vaughn noticed, too. A muscle jumped in his jaw as he regarded the woman with unabashed hatred.
“Ready to go back?” Dr. Watts asked, his hands clasped together in front of him as if he couldn’t contain his excitement.
Vaughn grunted in answer.
Crescent and Dr. Watts stepped into the corner that was a blind spot to the spell that prevented teleportation in and out of the dome. It seemed they were both coming with us. I started to join them, but Adaline stepped in front of me. She was regarding my wings with curiosity as if she had never seen them before.
“Your aunt tells me you can cast a glamour to hide your wings. Is that true?”
I frowned at the odd comment and exchanged a glance with Vaughn.
“It is,” I said, itching to cast it now so she would stop staring at my wings as if I were a carnival freak.
“Why don’t you? Hide your wings anymore, I mean.”
When I was little, a cruel, wingless fae boy had picked a fight with me, threatening to rip the wings off my back. We had both been very young when it happened, no more than seven years old. I understood much later that he’d only been trying to scare me. I had beaten him in a chasing game thanks to my wings, and he’d been mad.
At the time, however, the threat had gotten to me, and instinctively, I gained the ability to make my wings appear invisible to others. Hiding them became something I did whenever strangers were about. It was a protective instinct that seemed to work on its own most of the time. Eventually, I learned to control it, and by the time Faerie was destroyed, I could do it at will. Then, at the Supernatural Academy—among all the discrimination againstLessers—I had learned to be proud of who I was, and never to hide my best feature.
I pondered Adaline’s question, considering her sudden curiosity. I didn’t like it at all, so I decided to shrug in answer.
She made a sound in the back of her throat and twisted her mouth to one side, displeased with my non-answer. Her cold eyes slid to Vaughn who was watching her closely as if he could read her thoughts if he stared hard enough.
At last, Adaline stepped aside and let us join Crescent and the doctor. A moment later we dematerialized and appeared back in front of the cave where we had left the others.
It was nighttime. We’d been gone nearly twenty-four hours. A healthy fire was burning a few feet away from the cave’s entrance. What looked like three rabbits were roasting at the tips of spear-like branches spiked into the ground and leaning toward the fire.
